Asking your customers to leave a Google review is an important part of any reputation management strategy. With many positive reviews associated with your business, you can improve your star rating and attract potential customers — leading to more conversions, sales, and revenue.
Even though some customers may look for your business on Google and leave a review on their own with the “write a review” prompt, you can help nudge them to act and increase your chances of getting more Google reviews by proactively sending a Google review link to them.
So, how do you do that? In this article, we’ll explain how to find and how to send a Google review link, including through different channels you may choose to use. We’ll also talk about the importance of responding to reviews once they come in.
How to get the review link — 3 easy ways
First, it’s important to have a Google Business Profile for your business. If you haven’t already done so, set one up.
With your profile in place, there are a few relatively quick ways to retrieve and send a Google review link to your customers. Here’s one of the easiest:
- Login to your Google Business Profile
- Find your business using Google Search
- Click the number of reviews you have
- Click “get more reviews”
- Copy the link that appears and share it with your customers. Note that if the link is really long and unwieldy, you can use a URL shortening tool like Bitly to make the link shorter and easier to share.
If you operate a franchise or have multiple business locations, you can use this method:
- Login to your Google Business Profile
- Within your Google Business Profile manager, find the business you want to get the link for
- Click “share your business profile”
- Copy and send the Google review link that appears
Another way to get a review link is with Google Maps:
- In the Google Maps app, click on your profile icon
- Click “your business profiles”
- Look for “get more reviews” in the overview section and select “share profile”
- Copy the link and share with your customers later, or send the Google review link directly with social media or messaging apps
If you don’t yet have a Google Business Profile but want to start getting reviews, a fourth option is via the Google Maps developer platform using the Place ID Finder. This method requires a little more technical know-how, and you’ll need to read through Google’s documentation on it, but it’s still a good option until you set up your profile.
How to send a Google review link via different channels
Once you have your review link, there are a number of options for sending it. You may not actively use every channel listed below, so just pick the one(s) that make the most sense for your business:
SMS
One of the fastest, most popular ways is to send the Google review link through SMS — or a text message. If necessary, shorten the URL first (as we mentioned above) to ensure you don’t go over the character limit for texting, and then send it to your SMS-subscribed customers. Make sure to follow SMS compliance and best practices.
You can also send the Google review link by emailing it to the customers on your contact list. Keep the email short and sweet, and provide a quick instruction or two for what to do. Leaving a review should never be a lengthy or annoying process — if it is, customers will quickly abandon ship.
Social media
When engaging back and forth with a customer on social media — such as Facebook or Instagram — ask if they’d like to leave a Google review and if they agree, then provide the link. You can also post the link to your wider audience.
In person
Include the link on material that you hand to the customer in person or that’s visible in-store — such as at the bottom of a sales receipt, coupon, brochure, or on a sign. At the end of a face-to-face interaction, ask the customer for a review and then point out the link.
Chat session
Send the Google review link at the end of a chat session with a customer service rep. If the interaction was positive or an issue was satisfactorily resolved, ask if the customer would like to leave a review and if they agree, post the link in the chat window before ending the session.
Customer portal
If you run a service-based business and have a customer portal where customers can login to manage their account, include the link at the top of the screen once they’re logged in, or any prominent place within the portal.
A few rules of thumb when you ask for a Google review:
- Don’t just ask for a positive review. Even though it’s easy to request reviews from customers who are probably pretty happy already or had a really positive experience, you still want those reviews to be authentic, objective, and honest.
- The same is true if you want to incentivize customers to leave a review. When you send a Google review link, you can’t reward the customer for leaving a positive review only. Not only is this in bad taste, you could also be violating Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines around soliciting reviews.
- If you request a review but still haven’t seen it after a few days, it’s okay to send a follow-up to your SMS or email request and gently remind the customer.
Make sure to respond to reviews that come in
Ideally, once you’ve sent a Google review link to a number of customers through the channels you prefer, you’ll start getting reviews. Once you do, it’s important to respond to all of them — yes, even the negative ones that might turn up.
That’s because responding to reviews helps your business:
- Increase customer loyalty: Customers want to know that you’re paying attention to their feedback, and responding to it is one of the best ways to establish an emotional, human connection with the customer which can give a big boost to customer loyalty.
- Improve your brand’s image: Review responses present a great opportunity to answer questions that come up in a review, solve an issue that was raised, or clarify a situation. It’s an excellent way to take control of the narrative around your brand or business and shape it in a more positive way.
- Earn more reviews: When other customers see you responding to reviews, it inspires and encourages them to leave their own reviews. And remember that the more reviews you get, the better — as it can bump up your star rating like we discussed above and even help with search engine optimization (SEO).
What to do with positive reviews
First of all, if you send a Google review link and get a positive review in return, be happy and celebrate. Getting positive reviews means your business is doing something right. Keep doing more of what’s working, but don’t leave the review there.
Instead, respond to the review with delight and express appreciation for the customer’s kind words. You don’t need to give a lengthy response — just enough to show that you read the review and are grateful.
What to do with negative reviews
Above all else, don’t ignore them. It’ll be glaringly obvious to your audience if you’re only responding to positive reviews and not the negative ones. Even if this isn’t actually how you feel, not responding to negative reviews sends the message that you don’t care about complaints or concerns, and that you’re unlikely to address real problems in your business.
The best thing to do is to respond promptly, apologize for the poor experience, and either offer a solution if the situation calls for it or let the customer know what you plan to do differently the next time around. Your willingness to deal with a negative review upfront can sometimes be enough to soften a disgruntled customer and inspire them to come back, so that if you send a Google review link to that customer again, you might be pleasantly surprised.
What to do with neutral reviews
Neutral reviews are tricky since they fall into a weird in-between space that isn’t particularly enthusiastic but also not super negative either. It can be hard to tease out what the real reason might be for their lackluster review.
When you send a Google review link and get a neutral review, use your response to ask for more information from the customer. Could the service have been better? Was the product they bought not up to par? Was there something else about their purchase experience that somehow didn’t meet expectations? The goal is to engage and learn so you can make your business that much better, and even turn an indifferent customer into a truly enthusiastic one.
While you’re at it, here are several more do’s and dont’s for responding to reviews.
If you’re ready to learn how GatherUp’s reputation management platform can help you automate Google review requests and get more reviews, start your free trial today.
